An infamous local politician in Michigan once told his starry eyed colleague,
“You can’t save any souls in Lansing (Michigan’s capital), you can only lose your own.”
He was right.
Love vs violence
All political power is based on violence or the threat of it. Behind every law, regulation, and edict is the butt or barrel of a gun, a baton, a prison cell. It cannot be otherwise. The single thing that distinguishes government from every other institution is that it will cage or kill you if you don’t follow its rules, and it will claim it does so “legitimately”.
You cannot do good by initiating violence.
Christ, in contrast, accomplished the greatest good possible without ever employing the tactics of compulsion.
Power under vs power over
Theologian Greg Boyd contrasts the ways of the Kingdom of God with the ways of the demonic kingdoms of this world as one that subverts with love and sacrifice – power under – vs one that compels with violence – power over.
There are growing murmurs among those tired of left-wing secular tyranny. They are coalescing in some circles around a desire for right-wing religious tyranny. Both are evil, and the latter the more dangerous because it cloaks evil in explicitly Christian terms. It is more directly and literally anti-Christ.
Some exuberant “trad” types, understandably upset with the vile corruption of the political and cultural commanding heights, are seeking vengeance. Trying to justify the bloodlust, they sometimes point to episodes like Jesus forming a whip of cords and driving money changers out of the temple.
The temple.
Not Herod’s court or the Roman Governor’s mansion. This was not a political statement, and certainly not an effort to gain political power. It wasn’t even an effort to gain ecclesiastical power – Jesus didn’t try to take over administration of the temple with his disciples.
It was a chastisement of the Church, not a crusade against unbelievers or political systems.
The analogy today would not be a campaign to cancel leftists – legally or socially – but a fiery preacher confronting a church about practices that distract from Christ. (Maybe even US flags hung next to the cross, or national anthems sung in church on state holidays.)
Jesus was more powerful than Herod or Rome because he didn’t play their game. He didn’t even try for their kind of power – power over. He opted to ignore it entirely – even to the point of being falsely accused, “cancelled”, publicly humiliated, tortured, and murdered by the regime – because he understood what C.S. Lewis called The Deeper Magic.
The power of the Kingdom of God is infinitely superior to the power of the demonic kingdoms of this world. It crushes them. They tremble at the prayers, sacrifices, kindnesses, and acts of love of the Saints. They fear the Remnant.
You will not improve the world with laws and swords. You will not improve the world by crucifying others. You will improve the world only when you take up your own cross and surrender without malice; when you forgive your executioners and go joyfully.
When they look upon this, the spell is broken. Hearts are set afire. The image of Christ in you stirs a thought: “Surely this is a son of God.”
That’s the revolution of the Cross, always at work making the violence of the enemy useless, turning it on itself.